A Grip on Sports: After WSU rose above Washington once more, Gonzaga faces a challenging road week
A GRIP ON SPORTS • While walking through Twitter last night near the end of Washington State’s 78-70 victory over Washington, we came upon one of those profound statements of truth rarely seen anymore. “Rivalry games are so (bad word) fun” one WSU follower wrote. True. With a caveat.
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• We wonder if any Washington fan felt the same way at that time, as the Cougars were closing out their fifth men’s basketball win in the last six contests with the Huskies? Results matter, right, when it comes to enjoyment? Have to.
The result Wednesday night in Pullman showed once again the Janus-like nature of this season’s WSU offense.
Sunday against USC, the Cougars couldn’t score except outside the 3-point line. They converted just five of 32 shots inside, a paltry 15.6% in the area of what is usually considered high-percentage shots. Not even hitting 15 of 31 3-point shots could offset that lack of inside game and WSU lost 62-60 on a last-second shot.
That’s one face of Kyle Smith’s team.
The other? That showed up last night against the Huskies.
You know, Mike Hopkins’ team that relies on his fastidious zone defense, a defense designed to make it hard to score in the paint. Instead of hitting, we don’t know, 20 3-pointers, the Cougars pounded the ball inside, converting 23 of 44 attempts inside the arc. That’s 52.3%. Maybe not Gonzaga-like, but darn good. And good enough to overcome their 35% shooting from long range.
Six-foot-11 freshman Mouhamed Gueye scored 25 points on 11-of-23 shooting. Sophomore Efe Abogidi scored 21, using his 6-10 muscular frame to hit 7-of-9 shots. Dishon Jackson, a 6-10 sophomore, added eight points on just four shots.
After trying to knock out USC from Venice Beach, the Cougars’ Palouse strategy involved getting into the muck around the rim and outworking UW.
Good plan.
More than half of Washington State’s points – 40 – came in the paint. Now that is a somewhat misleading number much of the time – fastbreak layups with no one around count as points in the paint – but combine that number with second-chance point (26) and you can see WSU was better inside than the Huskies last night.
However, there is another caveat looming. Remember those youthful games of “Horse” you used to play? Maybe you had the same rule we did: To give your opponent his “e,” you had to make your same shot twice. We called it “proving it.”
The Cougars have to prove it against UW on Saturday afternoon in Seattle. The teams meet again. In Hec Ed.
So which face will Smith’s team put forward? The inside one or the outside one?
• The University of San Francisco has lost seven games this season. Six of those losses have come by a combined 16 points. The other one? It came in the Kennel against Gonzaga almost 50 days ago. The final margin was 16 points, 78-62.
Which is just a simple way to illustrate the Dons should give GU a tough go of it tonight on the Hilltop.
Another numerical way to illustrate it? USF is 25th in the NCAA’s NET rankings (Gonzaga is No. 1), ahead of 23-3 Providence, 21-4 Colorado State and 21-6 Loyola-Chicago, which happened to hand USF a neutral court loss in early January.
• One thing about journeying through life with sports as your constant companion. You meet some really interesting people.
Most of them are athletes, of course. But when you carry a recorder, a notebook and a mechanical pencil, often times those interesting people work behind the scenes.
One of the most interesting we met died Wednesday. Lawrence Fan, who has been San Jose State’s sports information director since 1980, died of unspecified causes at age 67.
Fan was unique. We first met in 1980, when we were just starting out in the business, he on the public relations side, myself as a reporter. San Jose State and UC Irvine, my alma mater I covered for the Orange County Register, were in the PCAA, now known as the Big West so there were two or three interactions at least for a few years.
It was obvious from the first meeting Fan was meticulous, driven and married to the job. I hear the term “live-and-breath” in relation to someone these days and I think of Fan back then concerning San Jose State basketball.
He was as prepared an SID as I ever met, and as nice as any.
Our paths diverged, of course. They passed again during my second act as a sports writer, but only rarely. Though Fan had grown older – for some reason, I didn’t – he still looked remarkably the same. Heck, he had hardly any gray in his hair. And the niceness? That was a life-long trait.
Every word I’ve read this morning concerning his passing has emphasized that. We got me to thinking. Hopefully everyone who felt that way made sure he knew. They didn’t wait until it was too late to share.
And if they didn’t, like I certainly didn’t, then find someone who is similar and make sure they know how you feel about them. It will make them smile. Make them feel good. And what is each day if not another chance to make someone smile and feel good?
Not much, that’s for sure.
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Gonzaga: The two-game road trip to finish the regular season starts tonight in San Francisco. Theo Lawson, who grew up in the Bay Area, plows that turf with this preview of tonight’s game as well as the key matchup. It is Senior Night for the Dons, so it is appropriate fifth-year senior guard Jamaree Bouyea is the one Gonzaga has to stop. … Jim Meehan has a story today as well. His is on Kevin Pangos’ new contract with a Moscow team. Considering what’s going on in the world, it is not a great day to be announcing that. … The women are at home this weekend, the final one for five players who will be playing their final games in Kennel. Jim Allen has this story on that group, headlined by Melody Kempton, who is from just down Interstate 90 in Post Falls. … Jim also has this preview of the games, which lays out what they mean. … Around the WCC, Mark Pope still feels BYU’s best basketball is ahead.
WSU: We linked the Cougars’ win from last night above, but we also want to give you a link to Colton Clark’s game story if you happened to skip down to here. … Colton pulled double duty by putting together this story on Johanna Teder, the Cougar guard who helped the women to two wins last week. …Wait, Colton pulled triple duty. He also has this story on the spring football schedule. The Cougars will start their first spring under coach Jake Dickert on March 23. … We have a story from Seattle to pass along concerning last night’s game. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and college basketball, the rumors swirling around Andy Enfield can’t be helping USC. … Jaylen Clark has certainly helped UCLA. … A couple of Oregon players still don’t know if this is their final season. … Oregon State has lost a lot of games. … Arizona is headed to Utah, which is a homecoming for one of the Wildcats. … Colorado, which hosts Arizona State, is looking to continue its solid play. … In football news, Arizona State’s ongoing issues seem to be growing ever more odd by the day. The university president took a stand yesterday, supporting Herm Edwards. Is this the final straw? The proverbial kiss of the death? … USC’s improved recruiting should help everyone. … Arizona has helped itself. … We can pass along another Oregon position preview.
EWU and Idaho: Dan Thompson’s notebook looks at the Eagles’ chances for a Big Sky tourney first-round bye (slim to none) and an Eastern player sharing conference player of the week honors with a Vandal. … Around the Big Sky, Montana is in bounce-back mode again.
Whitworth: The Northwest Conference playoffs begin tonight, with tri-champions Whitworth, Linfield and Pacific Lutheran vying for the conference crown with Whitman. The winner of the two-game playoff earns the only automatic berth to the NCAA Division III playoffs. Jason Shoot has this preview.
Preps: Mead last weekend won its first State wrestling title in coach Phil McLean’s 22-year tenure. Dave Nichols documents just how the Panthers did it. … Dave also has a notebook that includes a commitment to Oregon State hoops from Gonzaga Prep’s Jayden Stevens.
Shock: The PFD extended the franchise’s deadline to meet contract obligations for another day. It seems 5 p.m. today is the final deadline. Thomas Clouse has more in this story.
Track and field: John Blanchette continues his looks back at previous USATF Indoor Track and Field Championships, with this year’s event at The Podium this weekend. Today’s episode covers Brad Walker’s pole vault victory in 2006.
Seahawks: The Hawks’ free agent priorities are both defensive backs. … Duane Brown’s future also has to be decided.
Mariners: One of our favorite M’s when we first moved here was Julio Cruz. He also was the recipient of my favorite Chris Berman nickname: Julio “Won’t-You-Let-Me-Take-You-On-A-Sea” Cruz. Sadly, Cruz died this week at age 67. Larry Stone has this obituary. … The M’s signed three more international players. … We are going to start to see real games canceled real soon. … On a brighter note, if you love old ballparks, this is a story not to be missed.
Sounders: Seattle needs to win to advance in CONCACAF play.
Kraken: The latest struggles show there is work to be done.
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• It’s been about 40 years since we’ve won an Associated Press sports writing award. Oh, there have been lots of journalism awards in the meantime (journalists loved to give each other awards) but not for sports writing. Which made yesterday’s announcement of the latest one, for event coverage, special. Mainly because it was for Gonzaga’s NCAA tourney and it was team award that included Jim Meehan, John Blanchette, Theo Lawson and Justin Reed. I’m always into team awards. Until later …